St. Mary Help Of Christians Catholic School in Aiken, SC, has a new bus.  It is the traditional yellow, but students affectionately have nicknamed it the “Green Bus”.  Catherine Green, St. Mary’s office manager, and her children, Michele and Jason, gave the bus to the school as a gift.  Their gift has become a lesson in giving  –  and receiving.

Green and her children originally wanted the gift to be anonymous, but decided that it was important for the students to know the bus was a gift and who gave it.  In 25 years of being the school’s secretary, Mrs. Greene has cared for, healed, protected and disciplined them.  She approached her husband a couple of years ago about buying a bus for the school that did not have the funds in their budget to purchase one.  It just never happened – at that time.

After her husband passed away in March of 2017, Mrs. Green and her children decided to use some of his life insurance funds to purchase the bus for the school.  This past fall, Green learned of an upstate, family-owned business in Chesnee that sells used buses.  After her first choice fell through John Dunbar, the school’s regular bus driver, drove to Carolina Bus Sales, Inc., to check out her second choice.  Green and Dunbar picked up the new-to-St. Mary’s bus, a 2005 model, in November.

Green said the school was long overdue for a new bus and there was not enough duct tape in the world to hold together the 1984 bus that the school was formerly using.  She stated that her family’s gift is a way to give back to a school that has given them so much and that it feels great to give and to teach that what you do for others, you’re doing for Jesus Christ.